


You and Me and Everything Else

by caffeinefire



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Crowley stops time, First Kiss, Fluff, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Light Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, Other, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-06 18:59:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20296390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caffeinefire/pseuds/caffeinefire
Summary: The echo of a snap resounded in the air and the rest of the world was silenced. The patter of the rain stopped, cars ceased to rumble past, and the flicker of flame in the candle on the coffee table froze. His own breath caught in his throat as he felt the change in the air, felt the waiting hum of a world stilled.The only things that moved were Crowley’s eyes, golden and intense as they wandered over Aziraphale’s face, examining his stunned expression, still unfocused from the wine.“’s the easiest thing in the world, angel,” he whispered. “Why are you being so stubborn about this?”





	You and Me and Everything Else

_What day is it? And in what month?_

_This clock never seemed so alive._

_I can’t keep up. And I can’t back down._

_I’ve been losing so much time._

“You know, I was thinking,” Aziraphale dabbed at the corners of his mouth, then folded his napkin delicately and sat it next to his empty plate. Crowley watched him almost lazily, slipping into the easy comfort of after-dinner conversation and wine that had become their habit over the past several weeks. It had been their habit over the last several decades, really, but after the end of the world had come and gone, dinners had become more frequent.

“Thinking what?” Crowley asked when Aziraphale didn’t continue, still partially lost in his own thoughts. He’d never expected this. Never expected an _after_. After centuries of feeling like the clock was ticking… After millennia of knowing that at any moment either of their sides could spare a glance their direction, see everything, end _everything_…

The years stretching out before them felt decadent. Luxurious.

No more ticking clock. No more watchful eyes. At least not for a while.

Just him, Aziraphale, and the entire world.

“Well I was thinking,” Aziraphale continued, “that perhaps we ought to… prepare in some way. For the big one.”

“The big one?” Crowley looked lost for a second, his mind still elsewhere. Aziraphale gave him a meaningful look. “Right, yes, the big one. That.” He adjusted in his chair as the topic of conversation shifted, interrupting his thoughts of languid infinity.

He had been the first to mention the idea of Armageddon 2.0, but right now it felt like a paranoid delusion. A hypothetical, not something to be anticipated.

“I don’t really think we have to worry about that quite yet, angel. It could be- I mean…”

Aziraphale raised his eyebrows as Crowley floundered for words.

“_Exactly, _you have no idea how long we’ve got,” his satisfied smile set Crowley’s eyes rolling of their own accord, his whole head thrown into the motion. “And if you’re right, and it comes down to _humanity _against all of _them… _we may be all they have.”

Crowley turned a little more in his seat. He could hear the sliver of anxiety in his angel’s voice. Aziraphale had been thinking about this since Crowley had mentioned it, and he kicked himself mentally for saying anything in the first place. Of course Aziraphale would latch on to the _one _thing left to fuss over, the _one _responsibility they could possibly have left.

“You’re underestimating them,” he warned. “You know as well as I do how well they would adapt to a war. Even a holy one. _Especially _a holy one,” Crowley sighed, then sat a little straighter, only to throw his arm over the back of the chair, demonstrating a posture that would ensure any other customer’s removal from the fine establishment. Miraculously, none of the waitstaff ever seemed to notice when it was Crowley. “What did you have in mind?”

“Well,” Aziraphale hesitated, “ideally we would avoid the war to begin with.”

“Ideally, yes,” Crowley agreed. When it became clear that Aziraphale didn’t have any other suggestions in mind, he sighed. “Look, if it’ll make you feel better, we’ll think on it, alright? But we have time, there’s no need-,”

“There!” Aziraphale interrupted, brightening up.

“Where?” Crowley looked around, “What?”

“Let’s start there,” Aziraphale said in way of explanation, suddenly looking at Crowley very intensely in that way that he did when he wanted something, all sparkle and raised eyebrows. Crowley’s heart skipped a beat, eyes growing soft behind his glasses, though he was careful to keep a neutral, if confused expression. His own demonic powers held nothing to the temptation Aziraphale was capable of, he thought with some amusement, as he felt his heart tug toward him, ready to give in, to appease, to indulge anything the angel could ask.

“Time, dear. How do you do it? Stop it, I mean,” Aziraphale’s smile was illuminated in the same way as when he found a new book, delighting in the search for new information, new knowledge. Crowley felt himself shrink back under the glow, quickly throwing up walls.

He fumbled for a moment. Options flew through his head, the start of each sentence leaping unbidden to his lips.

_Lie? No._

_Truth? Hel- Heav- Fuck no. _

_Half-Truth? Maybe. Too much thinking, though._

_Evade._

“It’s a miracle, angel. You just do,” he swallowed down the bitter taste in his mouth as the eager smile turned to disappointment.

“Come now, Crowley, you must have some trick. I’ve never been able to pull it off,” he huffed. “It’s quite literally saved the world. I might need it someday.”

“No trick,” Crowley deflected. “It’s just like any other miracle, I don’t know what to tell you.”

“I don’t understand why you won’t-,”

“Drop it, angel,” Crowley said, sharper than he intended.

The rest of the night was quiet.

\---

Aziraphale hadn’t let it go, exactly, but he also hadn’t meant to bring it up again so soon. Wine had a nasty habit of loosening his tongue, though, and a week later, after a lovely dinner and a few particularly strong bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon, the topic buzzed incessantly in his mind. His aching curiosity eventually overshadowed his better judgement when a natural lull gave it just enough space to escape.

“Couldn’t- couldn’t do it now, I wager,” Aziraphale challenged unprompted, the first half of his thought remaining unsaid.

“Do what?” Crowley was sprawled across the couch, wine drunk and comfortable. He lolled his head to the side to watch the angel as he waited for his answer, but the slight narrowing of his eyes and the groan that trailed at the end of the question betrayed that he already knew _exactly _what Aziraphale was talking about.

“I’ve been _thinking,” _Aziraphale explained in lieu of an answer. “I’ve been thinking that its quite impressive, really. Stopping time. Must be very difficult with all of the…” his hand waved around in the air for a moment, either searching for words or just gesturing vaguely at everything, “moving parts.”

“Naaaahhhhh,” Crowley replied, shaking his head. “Not hard. ‘s just a miracle, I told you.”

“You still have to…” his hand kept gesturing vaguely, brow knitting together as he tried to describe the ineffable process of performing a miracle, “_…do it,” _he finished with certainty. “And you cannot possibly while drunk. Too hard.”

It was the satisfied grin on Aziraphale’s face that did it.

“s’not hard at all,” and suddenly Crowley was sitting up, leaning towards him, every part of his body pointed towards Aziraphale. The echo of a snap resounded in the air and the rest of the world was silenced. The patter of the rain stopped, cars ceased to rumble past, and the flicker of flame in the candle on the coffee table froze. His own breath caught in his throat as he felt the change in the air, felt the waiting hum of a world stilled.

The only things that moved were Crowley’s eyes, golden and intense as they wandered over Aziraphale’s face, examining his stunned expression, still unfocused from the wine.

“’s the easiest thing in the world, angel,” he whispered. “Why are you being so stubborn about this?”

The sudden earnestness in his voice caught Aziraphale off guard.

“I-,”

_Because I lost so much time being afraid. Because for 6000 years we had nothing but time, and then time suddenly ran out. And now I don’t know how much we have left._

“Who knows when I might need more time?” He was trying valiantly for casual and failing utterly, anxiety coloring every syllable with desperation, unable to break the intensity of Crowley’s suddenly steady eyes.

_I feel like we’re living on borrowed time and I don’t know what comes next, Crowley._

“I’ll be there, angel.” Crowley said it like a promise. Like a reminder. Like he’d said it a thousand times before. “I’ll always give you all the time you need.”

Aziraphale waited for a moment, breathless. What he was waiting for he wasn’t sure, but after all of the time they’d spent together he knew when Crowley had more he wanted to say. The demon was more motionless than he’d ever seen him, eyes searching for something in Aziraphale’s own, until he finally swallowed and stood up.

“Wh-where are you going?” Aziraphale himself didn’t understand the slight panic he heard in his own voice as Crowley slipped his glasses back on from where they’d fallen to the floor.

“Home, angel. I’m done for the night,” and just like that, with the quiet bell and the rattle of the door, Aziraphale was alone with the patter of the rain and the flickering of the candle.

\---

Aziraphale tried again to let it go. He succeeded for nearly three weeks.

“Can’t talk now,” Crowley rushed into the shop, cutting Aziraphale off before he’d said anything. He closed his mouth into an unhappy line, pouting at the dismissal. Crowley disappeared into the back room, only to reappear a moment later holding the laptop he’d left there a few days ago.

“Devon’s new line is limited quantity,” he explained, setting the laptop down on the counter and flinging it open. “I’ve got to get in the online queue as soon as it opens in,” he glanced down at his current watch, “two minutes.”

Aziraphale didn’t mean to say it out loud. He really didn’t. But it had been just about the only thing on his mind for weeks, chipping away at his thoughts relentlessly, always in the background, the ache of knowledge unobtainable.

“Could have as much time as you wanted, really,” he mumbled, knowing as he said it that he sounded like a pouting child, and hoping in vain that Crowley hadn’t heard.

“Really?” Crowley looked up from his laptop, pausing his frantic typing. “Right now?”

Aziraphale could have stopped, could have said “no, of course not. Please continue with your excited attempt at obtaining an overpriced watch,” but he didn’t.

“Well am I wrong?” he pushed, eyebrow raised.

“Yes, you’re wrong,” Crowley snapped. “I can only do it when-,” he froze as the last half of the sentence died in his throat. He pressed his lips into a thin line and slammed his laptop shut, but Aziraphale put a hand on the closed computer before Crowley could snatch it and walk out the door.

“When what?”

“It doesn’t matter, Aziraphale. I told you to let it go,” Crowley’s expression was nigh unreadable, face still and eyes hidden behind his glasses, but Aziraphale could hear the strain in his voice. From what, he couldn’t tell. After a moment’s pause, Crowley slid the laptop out from under Aziraphale’s hand and left the shop, closing the door a bit harder than strictly necessary.

Through the window, Aziraphale watched him open the computer back up again in the Bentley, stare at it for a moment without touching the keys, then close it. Cold tendrils of guilt began creeping their way across his torso; he could practically hear the frustrated sigh as Crowley rested his head on the steering wheel for a moment before starting the car and driving off.

\---

Crowley groaned under his breath, then glared at the tv until it shut off. The days had been dragging on, hours marching forward at an annoyingly steady pace as he waited for… he wasn’t sure what. If he were being honest with himself, he wanted nothing more than to show back up at the bookshop and pretend as if nothing happened, the sort of easy acknowledgment of harsh-feelings-forgotten that came with a millennia long friendship.

He groaned again and settled even lower into his chair. The problem was he wasn’t sure how much time to give the situation to settle. He’d been ready to apologize the second he’d left the shop. The second he’d heard the door slam behind him. But that wasn’t how these things played out, wasn’t the routine. Before Armageddon (and the distinct lack thereof) it had been easy to let things rest for years, decades even. He’d had a job to do, technically. Temptations to complete. And he’d known that Aziraphale had his own tasks to keep him busy. Years would pass between their meetings without so much as a thought.

He didn’t want to wait years. He didn’t even want to wait weeks. The past few days had been torture of the worst kind, slow and aching, empty and alone, a monotony that ground into his head until he just wanted to go back to sleep.

He heaved himself up out of his chair before the thought could tempt him any further. He wouldn’t risk another century-long nap. Not when Aziraphale was _right there _and there was so little keeping them apart anymore.

Right.

He grabbed his jacket off the back of the chair and made for the door. He’d apologize for his abruptness, his stubbornness, whatever he needed to, and they could get on with their lives. Time could move forward… and if the angel was still persistent in cracking that particular chestnut-

Crowley froze for a moment, hesitating, then shook his head and continued shoving his arms into his jacket. He’d just have to find some other way to explain it.

He was just reaching for his glasses when a light knock at the door stopped him in his tracks.

_“Crowley? It’s me,” _the soft voice filtered through the wood, and Crowley swallowed down his shock, blinking as he adjusted to the sudden appearance of what, moments ago, he had been preparing to race towards at 90 miles an hour.

_“Crowley, I know you’re in there, I-,”_

He swung the door open to a suddenly stammering angel.

“Oh, hello. There you are. I had something I wanted to- That is- May I come in?”

Crowley gestured broadly with his hand, welcoming him in. Aziraphale smiled gratefully up at him, and Crowley turned to close the door behind him to hide the warm smile he felt creeping unbidden into his eyes.

“You’ve been here before, angel. Make yourself at home,” he gestured again to the whole of his apartment, but to his disappointment Aziraphale remained standing awkwardly in his entryway.

“I don’t really mean to impose for too long,” he responded. “I- Well, I just wanted to stop by and give you this.”

Only then did Crowley notice the box that Aziraphale held out. It was sleek, black metal, and just large enough that Crowley was more comfortable taking it with both hands. He looked at it, confused, then back up at Aziraphale, who was watching the ground self-consciously. Possibilities ran through his mind, each wilder than the last until he finally settled on just opening the box.

Its contents left him even more confused.

These had sold out in _seconds._

_How?_

_._

_._

_._

_Why?_

He tried for the first question, his voice infuriatingly uncooperative, but Aziraphale seemed to understand what he meant.

“Turns out people with a taste for expensive and rare watches sometimes have a similar taste in books. I found someone willing to make a trade,” he explained softly, a confession, looking almost guilty.

“You-,” Crowley looked back and forth, from the watch in his hand to Aziraphale. “You traded one of your books for this?” The words left his mouth on a breath, lips barely moving. He saw, in his mind, Aziraphale in his bookshop, shelving and re-shelving, reading and rereading, saw the care he put into maintaining his books, many of them _centuries _old. Hands delicate on the spines, caressing a miracle across the bindings when necessary. Even Crowley could feel the love that went into each and every tome.

“Well,” Aziraphale responded, looking down and away from Crowley’s gaze, face growing warm. “It seemed important to you, and-,”

The watch in hands felt so silly and small in comparison. Crowley could hear, suddenly, the break in Aziraphale’s voice when he’d told him the shop had burned.

_All of it?_

“-it was _my _fault you didn’t get to it in time in the first place, and I-,”

Crowley was already shaking his head, trying to dismiss the vision, trying to stop the remorse in the angel’s voice. The watch wasn’t the point. He closed the cover of the box gently, setting it on the table.

“-I wanted to apologize for my behavior as of late-,”

“Don’t apologize. There’s nothing to apologize for, angel,” he whispered, and Aziraphale barely paused in his speech before continuing.

“I shouldn’t have been so persistent. If you don’t want to tell me then _of course _you don’t have to. No explanation required. Please forg-,”

“I can only do it when it’s you,” Crowley interrupted. He couldn’t stand to hear Aziraphale _pleading, _not for forgiveness. Not from him. Never from him. And half a heartbeat after he realized he’d succeeded in stopping Aziraphale’s apology, he realized his mistake. Because Aziraphale was looking at him with confusion, and patience, and just a little bit of hope. Waiting for him to continue. Giving him time to back out if he didn’t want to.

“Ngk,” Crowley froze for a moment, six thousand years hanging over his head, and the burning blue of Aziraphale’s wide eyes spread out before him like 833 degrees. He would fall into those eyes over and over again.

“It’s always…,” Crowley swallowed. “Always you. And me. And it’s nothing at all for everything else to just-,” he lifted his hand and snapped softly. The birds stopped their calling, and the watch in the box stopped ticking, and the entire world stopped spinning as time focused, instead, on the only being to ever exist. At least, the only being to ever exist to Crowley.

“Do you understand what I’m saying, angel?” Crowley whispered. He hoped he did. Crowley wasn’t sure he had the nerve to say it any clearer. He lowered his hand as he realized it was shaking.

Aziraphale drew in a deep breath. The air hummed with electricity, and he felt like he stood at the center of everything, an intensity that Aziraphale had only ever felt a few times before, had only ever felt here, in the space of thousands of moments shoved into a single point. He’d thought it was just a side-effect of being outside of time, the feeling of every eye in the universe being turned to you, the feeling of absolute attention, the feeling of-

He let his breath out shakily.

Crowley was waiting, giving him as much time as he needed. Each passing moment of silence seemed to pain him, though, as he searched Aziraphale’s eyes. This time Aziraphale knew what he was searching for, and he nodded, slowly, still stunned, unable to do much else when the only eyes in the universe were watching him like golden starlight, frozen under the vast expanse of heavens that had only ever existed on earth.

He saw relief in those eyes. They flashed with hurt, then understanding. Then acceptance.

“Right,” Crowley whispered, turning his eyes away, mouth drawing into a thin line as he snapped. “Now you know,” he said as the world started again, a wave of emotion breaking through his attempt at a casual tone.

And Aziraphale’s thoughts started turning again with the world as he realized the seconds had begun to tick past him, and he was still _standing there, _still _losing time, _and suddenly he knew _exactly _what came next.

In one quick motion, before Crowley could turn away, he closed the gap between them with a step, and he pulled his hand down with a _snap. _And like being thrown into empty space, Crowley felt every eye of a Principality of heaven turn toward him and only him as every star in the universe stopped burning, and breath paused in every creature great and small. The heavens ground to a halt as Aziraphale placed his hands gently around his face, fingers touching cheeks with all the delicacy of a conservator and all the confidence of a guardian.

Crowley had never felt so small, and yet he felt suddenly as if he were _everything. _He felt himself standing at the center of all the power of an angel of the Lord and it burned like holy fire, awesome and terrible, but the only thing he could see was _Aziraphale. _Just Aziraphale with his cream and tartan, his white hair and wide, blue eyes. Unassuming, and quiet, and, at the moment, plunging headlong forward to catch up with where Crowley had always been.

_“I love you, too.”_

And he was pulled down into a kiss that flashed through him like lightning, lasting an eternity pressed into a single moment. The angel’s hands were in his hair and on his neck, holding him like something precious, like something _loved, _and after the briefest moment of shock, his hands caught up with the rest of him, and he held the angel back.

The world sat in the back of both of their minds, vague and eventual. But for now, it didn’t exist, and time could wait.

**Author's Note:**

> Song lyrics from "You and Me" by Lifehouse. Actually, entire concept behind this fic from "You and Me" by Lifehouse.


End file.
